The Climate of Man—III

ANNALS OF SCIENCE about global warming and the Bush Administration. Part three of a three-part series. In February, 2003, a series of Dutch TV ads on global warming appeared. A quarter of the Netherlands lies below sea level; another quarter is low enough that it’s regularly flooded. What makes the country habitable is the world’s most sophisticated water-management system. But Eelke Turkstra, of Room for the River, now argues that this system is unsustainable. A few years ago, Dutch chemist Paul Crutzen claimed that, starting in the 1780s, industrialization created a new age-the Anthropocene. In the last 200 years, industrialization has driven up carbon-dioxide emissions. If current trends continue, atmospheric carbon dioxide will reach 500 parts per million; the last time concentrations were that high was during the period known as the Eocene, 50 million years ago. For all practical purposes, the recent “carbonation” of the atmosphere is irreversible. Robert Socolow, of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative, has come up with 15 “stabilization wedges”-all of which address the problem of stabilizing carbon-dioxide emissions. But none of Socolow’s wedges are apt to be implemented since there’s no direct economic cost to companies emitting carbon dioxide and we are constantly building infrastructure that, in effect, guarantees additional carbon dioxide will be released in the future. Marty Hoffert, of NYU, is trying to find new, carbon-free ways to generate energy. Mentions space-based solar power, or S.S.P. Hoffert predicts that the world will start to “recarbonize.” In theory, the world has already committed itself to addressing global warming. Discusses the Kyoto Protocol Treaty. Mentions the Byrd-Hagel Resolution. The Kyoto Protocol went into effect on February 16th of this year. The writer spoke with Paula Dobriansky, the Under-Secretary of State for Global Affairs. When he ran for President in 2000, George W. Bush promised to impose federal limits on carbon dioxide. After he was elected, he withdrew the U.S. from Kyoto and announced he was opposed to any mandatory curbs on carbon dioxide. Bush’s new policy targets greenhouse-gas intensity, which relates emissions to economic output, but does little to actually reduce emissions. Mentions Sen. James Inhofe. The U.S. is the world’s chief purveyor of the work of global-warming “skeptics.” In legitimate scientific circles, however, it’s virtually impossible to find any disagreement over the fundamentals of global warming. Still, these skeptics have helped shape public discourse on climate change in this country. Mentions pollster Frank Luntz. The Bush Administration is reluctant to acknowledge broad scientific agreement on global warming. The writer attended a U.N. conference on the Kyoto Protocol this year. When the U.S. withdrew from Kyoto, in 2001, the entire effort nearly collapsed. So long as U.S. emissions grow unchecked, obtaining commitments to lower emissions from countries like China and India is next to impossible. Astonishingly, standing in the way of progress seems to be Bush’s goal. Mentions the Netherlands town of Maasbommel, which has recently begun building “amphibious homes.” Climate records show that we’re drawing closer to the temperature peaks of the last interglacial, when sea levels were 15 feet higher than they are today. Just a few degrees more and the earth will be hotter than it has been at any time since our species evolved. No matter what we do at this point, global temperatures will continue to rise in the coming decades. It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we’re now in the process of doing.